Epitaxial growth or deposition of III-nitride films onto substrates of a different material (e.g. silicon) often results in high epitaxial defect density, high film stresses, high wafer warpage, and cracks in the epitaxial films, which are typically caused by the large lattice constant mismatch between the substrate and the III-nitride film, or by the substrate and the III-nitride film having different lattice structure types. For example, when depositing a 2 μm thick AlGaN/GaN/AlN epitaxial layers onto 100 mm diameter silicon substrates, it is not uncommon to have up to 100 μm total warpage, which occurs despite efforts at strain reduction through careful control and selection of transition layers and compositions.